Double-crossed and forced to flee town to evade the authorities, a small time crook joins his younger brother on a quest to track down their father, a former sporting legend turned anarchist, in this deliberately paced drama from Hal Hartley of 'Trust' fame. The film features some great dialogue as the brothers banter about whether there is any difference between being "in love" and "thinking with your penis" and as they discuss whether certain music artists let themselves be exploited or take control of whether how they are being exploited. Quirky supporting characters include a sarcastic local policeman and a store clerk set on learning French to help make his upcoming date with an Italian woman run smoother (!). The most intriguing character though is the brothers' father, and it never quite makes sense how few scenes he has, all cobbled at the end. Getting his disciples to recite politically charged verses, their father has become a bit of a cult figure, professing answers for all of his followers and yet disconnected from his own flesh and blood. Spending more time on the crook being double-crossed may have also helped since his heartbreak over that is a chief motivation (then again, Mary McKenzie is so amateurish as the woman who crossed him that it is a welcome relief when she disappears from screen). Whatever the case, this is certainly nowhere near as engaging a movie as 'Trust'; similarly though, 'Simple Men' is a film that works best in the scenes where the characters simply interact with one another and share their views.

First off, I'd like to say I'm an enormous Hartley fan. So many friends and people whose opinion I respect seem to think his later films ("Amateur" on) are lousy compared to his earlier ones. But from what I've seen, it's entirely the opposite. While "No Such Thing" fumbled and had a pointless second act, the first and third acts almost made up for it. "Amateur" is haunting and beautiful, and "Henry Fool" is flat out brilliant. But this...this is just poor.I agree with other comments on here - stupid dialogue, "too-cool" music selection, and an assload of pretense. The characters, if you can call them that, are flat, one-note, and horribly rendered by actors with absolutely no chemistry (although, I guess that's "the point," which is equally pretentious). If it wasn't for the beautiful photography and terrific anamorphic transfer, this DVD would have been an entire waste of money.

I'm pretty tolerant of films that are off-beat, but really! This is the kind of film that makes one observe that the director might make some pretty good films when he grows up. The first scene gave me the expectation that in a minute or two, a curtain would come down and the audience would clap politely, and the amateur actors would leave the stage and move on to the real movie. But they just moved to other stages, where they kept on reading their lines as if they were dictating to a stenographer. Try to imagine an episode of "Twin Peaks" starring Lindsay Crouse. You got it. After 30 minutes, I switched and watched something else---then when I came back 2 hours later, another Hartley film was airing ("Amateurs")---which actually did capture my interest. Not great, but I stuck it out to the end. Too many forced bits that made me think of the Aykroyd-Hanks "Dragnet".

Hartley has here created a near masterpiece; a wonderful, autumnally atmospheric and deeply human film. The usual quirks are there (the cyclical dialogues, the silences) but it is imbued with a warmth and love that makes the film unmissable. The fragile nature of relationships comes under the directors scrutiny as two brothers spend a couple of days in Long Island. The all night drinking scene complete with a dance routine to Sonic Youth's "Kool Thing" captures that dusk to dawn and too much Jack Daniels feel as well as any film I have ever seen. But, it is the closing scene which clinches it, a heart stoppingly romantic yet equally depressing end which asserts that through the pains of life, through the "trouble and desire" there is always a belief in other people that can keep us going. Life affirming (without being a saccharine "feel good" movie) and truly wonderful